


By Any Other

by Kelly123



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-10
Updated: 2013-01-10
Packaged: 2017-11-25 00:45:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/633290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kelly123/pseuds/Kelly123
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I am so very sick of my name being a mockery."</p>
            </blockquote>





	By Any Other

**Author's Note:**

> This has no backstory, and really makes no sense with canon. Somehow, that didn't stop me a bit.

It wasn’t as though she had never seen him angry before.

But really, had she?

He had become frustrated with their seemingly never-ending trek, irritated with the horses and dwindling food stores, and undeniably uncomfortable with their proximity at night, but it had never escalated to more than a muttered curse or a deepening of his perpetual scowl. He kept to himself, and she often thought, knew, more like, that he more enjoyed the company of his wolf than her. After all, what was she but a bastard princess whom he had been forced to accompany across the snows to a destination neither quite wanted to reach. She knew he did not wish to be here, not with her at the very least, though he had never quite voiced it as much. He had to have grown angry at some point...and yet, had she ever really seen him lose his temper?

Before, he must have. Before his father died and the North fell and his men turned on him and he was reduced to whatever role he played now. When he was a black brother, just a new recruit, he surely must have done more than set his jaw and nod curtly. Certainly, when in his youth amongst his half-brothers he had yelled and called them names as children were so like to do.

She could hardly imagine him a child, though she scarcely remembered being one herself. She could hardly imagine him as anything but the grim, somber man with scars he didn't think she had seen, who promised to keep her safe and to bring her home...wherever that was anymore. She knew she shouldn’t trouble him, but there was something in her that refused to spend day after day with a man who felt as cold to her as the winds which howled around them. The day had been long, and his shoulders rigid with tension, and yet she could not bite her tongue when-

“But...but Milord-“

It was almost beautiful, to watch him break.

“DON’T!” He cried, seizing her wrist to suspend it in the air between them before she touched him. So many nights they had lain so very close and yet not quite touching, that to finally know the warmth of his skin on her own was a shock she had not known she was craving.

And yet, when she felt it, she knew nothing had ever been more true.

His eyes were wild, their gray depths alight with an emotion she had never seen in them before. No, she had never seen him angry, though the word wasn’t quite right to describe just what emotion he was radiating over her in this moment. His grip on her was tight, but not bruising, and for a reason unknown to herself she reveled at the sensation. To see him, to feel him so raw of emotion, this man of immaculate composure, left her a little breathless.

“My apologies, M-“

“I said, don’t call me that!” He used his hold on her to yank her body closer to him, enough so that she could feel the heat of his breath ghosting over her face as he stared down at her. She longed to him to pull her closer, to press the two of them together for a chance at something more than a feeble attempt at fighting the cold. She ached to know what look might cloud those eyes for a feeling such as that, and imagined that it might not be so very different from the one which he wore now. “I am so very sick of my name being a mockery. I have no titles but that of bastard and I will not be made a fool of by the name of Lord Snow. Not now, not again, and not by you.”

“I did not mean any harm. I only meant...” her voice is softer than she would like, but her breath is coming heavy, making her chest heave and her throat tighten in the cold. She is not weak, but she knows that there are other reasons women tremble before men. She is still, after all, a lion, if never truly a stag, one which is beginning to awaken inside her. She stares into his face with green eyes which demand an explanation, heart thrumming with the thrill of his change of face as she straightens her back and levels her voice. “Well, you were the Lord Commander, were you not?”

His laugh at that is a cruel sound, and he drops her arm to turn his back on her. “I might have been, but that man died. I was Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, and I am a bastard of the North, but neither of the words sound comely to my ears.

“What...what would you have me call you then?” Her fingers trace the warmth his touch left on her wrist, taking a step closer to him. The snow crunches beneath her boots as she comes alongside him, and he must have noticed, but he pays no heed and stands his ground. The sun is setting behind the trees, and they would need to make camp while there was still light to see by, but neither of them could be bothered with such things as a time such as this.

“All my life, I’ve been Jon Snow, never Stark, though Lord Eddard was just as much my father as he was theirs. Always Jon Snow, as if with every breath they must remind me I could never be one of them.” He sneered at that, scowling at invisible faces in the distance beyond them, “As if I needed to be reminded, what with the way Lady Stark would-“ His voice cut off sharply after the name.

“What?”

“It does no good to speak ill of the dead.” Comes his muttered reply, casting a glance at the great white wolf which has come to investigate the source of his master’s raised voice. “She was my Lord father’s lady wife, and for that I shall do the honor of her memory no harm.”

“She hated you, for what you meant to her husband...and yet, you could not help but to care for her for the same.”

He smiled at her over his shoulder, and the fire he had displayed earlier is gone, replaced by a look which she has grown to recognize. It does not reach his eyes. And yet there is the hint of a spark, the barest twitch at the corner of his lips that makes her wonder... 

“You are far too clever for your own good, princess.”

“Not a princess any longer, you well know.” She answers, wrapping her arms around herself and innocently letting her elbow rest against his side in the process. “Just a bastard, born of incest and of no importance to anyone except for those who wish to mock me. Just Myrcella, now.” 

“Yes...” he said warily, dropping his head to bury his hand in the wolf’s fur, surreptitiously glancing at her from beneath dark lashes. “Yes, I suppose you are.”

She feels something close to anticipation begin to unfurl in her chest and when she shivers it is not entirely from the cold. The motion presses her arm closer into him, and she expects him to yank back as he has before, but her breath catches in her throat when he remains still against her. She feels as though she might be on the verge of something, though of what she does not know, and the words roll off her tongue before she truly has time to consider them. “Is that...is that what you’ve longed to be? Not Jon Snow, or Lord Crow, or anything but just...Jon?”

His shoulders slump and the wolf senses the change in him before she does, giving a whimper and nudging his thigh with its white muzzle. “My brothers used to call me Jon. Robb and Bran and Rickon. My little sister too. Arya. Back when...before...”

“You love them a great deal, didn’t you?”

“I did, once.” His use of the past tense hits them both hard, and before she knows what she’s doing she’s gone and slipped her hand into his. He blinks hard and stares blindly at their intertwined gloved fingers, his breathing slowed but words carefully even. “But it is no matter now. They’re gone, all of them.”

She clutches at his elbow with her other hand, “Oh no, you musn’t-“

“It’s true." for he is nothing if not ever-practical, "My family is dead, and by the gods, I should be too, I-“

“Jon.” 

It’s a simple word, his name, but one she’s never uttered alone before and given the fluttering inside her she is not very surprised to find it feels lovely against her lips. She says it once, but firmly and in an instant his eyes are trained on hers.

She isn’t quite sure what they hold. It isn’t the not-quite anger from before, or the blankness which so often is what he lets show, or any other emotion she might read on the face of a stranger. It is unknown to her, and yet, she feels as though it may be the same to him. To be so close to this newness, and to do so together...for some odd reason it gives her courage.

“Robb is gone, and your father too, and I am deeply sorry for your loss.” And she was too, no matter what role her family had played in their deaths, she had no part of her own in them. “But the younger boys, and your sisters...there is still a chance, is there not?”

He chooses his words carefully, and her pulse quickens as she waits for him to speak. “What do you mean by that?”

“Mayhaps they could be found. Mayhaps we could be the ones to find them.”

This emotion is easier to read, and his shock comes across with resounding clarity. “But you...and I am to be bringing you...”

“Where? And to whom? We have no lives to return to, Jon, not any longer. What else might we do but depart for a new one?”

As she waits for his answer she is very aware that he has not let go of her hand. She vows to do the same.


End file.
